Bradley J. Roth

Brad Roth obtained a Ph.D. degree in physics from Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt, TN, USA in 1987, where he made the first detailed comparison of the transmembrane potential and magnetic field produced by an isolated nerve axon. After obtaining his degree, Roth remained at Vanderbilt for a year as an American Heart Association Research Fellow, during which time he developed Fourier methods for solving the magnetic inverse problem with two-dimensional current sources. In 1988, Roth joined the Biomedical Engineering and Instrumentation Program at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. His research at NIH centered on three themes: cardiac electrophysiology, magnetic stimulation of nerves, and analysis of the electroencephalogram. His work on the heart was directed toward developing the bidomain model of cardiac tissue, and using it to understand problems such as defibrillation, arrhythmia generation, and anodal stimulation. Roth's work on magnetic stimulation involved calculating the electric field induced in the brain, determining the site of excitation, and coil design. His studies of the EEG required development of a realistically shaped head model to localize source in patients who are candidates for epilepsy surgery. From 1995 to 1998, Dr. Roth was the Robert T. Lagemann Assistant Professor of Living State Physics at Vanderbilt University. In 1998, he became an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Oakland University, where he is now a Professor and continues his research in theoretical cardiac electrophysiology, and teaches physics. He is coauthor of the 4th edition of the textbook Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology. In 2006 he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (Division of Biological Physics). His citation reads: "For his theoretical and numerical studies of bioelectric and biomagnetic phenomena, especially for his contributions to the bidomain model of the heart."